Weston knew he’d asked for this. But, as the plane landed in Anchorage, he felt the misgivings ripple through him. It was fine and dandy to be on the side of right and to do the proper thing, but, in this case, he knew it would come with some pain and some sense of not having done the right thing a long time ago. But then it wasn’t like anybody had given him the chance to be a father. That opportunity had been taken from him right at the beginning.
If he’d only known about the pregnancy, he could have done things differently, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t had a choice in the matter, and yet he still felt guilty that his daughter was growing up without him. Not that she was very old, but every day was a day she hadn’t had Weston in her life. And that was devastating. Mind-boggling, in a way. It was wrong, but he just didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. Long-term.
He hadn’t told the adoptive mother he was coming, and he should have. Daniela Rogers had contacted him a couple times, but he’d held off, not knowing when he’d get there, and then, all of a sudden, it happened, and he was here.
As he stared up at the runway on this early July morning, he realized just how much he both missed and didn’t miss this place. He’d spent a lot of years here. Good years.
Weston would have taken his daughter in a heartbeat, if he’d known about her, and, once again he was back to that—if he’d known—but, at the time she’d been born, he’d been getting blown up. Would knowing have changed any of that? The surgeries? The rehab? No. And no.
It took a good ten minutes for the plane to finally taxi to the gate, and, by the time he made it to the center of the airport, his checked bag had arrived.
With the big backpack he always traveled with tossed over his shoulders, he still hadn’t made up his mind as to where he was going first. With a big sigh, he walked out of the airport, heading to the nearest taxi.
A woman stood there, her hands on her hips, studying him.
Okay. Hard to miss her. He raised an eyebrow—noting she was pretty, very pretty; wore a wedding ring, so off limits; but also seemed mad—and was about to walk past when she called out his name.
“Weston?”
He stopped, then turned to look at her and slowly nodded. The adoptive mother. The widow. “Are you Daniela?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming?”
“I figured I’d do that when I got here,” he said. “Sometimes traveling doesn’t go the way it’s expected. How did you know I was coming in?”
“I have my ways,” she said.
At that, his second eyebrow went up. “Interesting,” he said. “That sounds like you’re stalking me.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not, but, in truth, I’m glad you’re here.”
“I am too,” he said. “I just don’t know how it’ll work.”
“You’re here for a job?”
“For you, my daughter and a job. Yes,” he said.
“But I suppose it was the job that brought you here,” she said, her tone turning hard.
His first instinct was to glare at her. His second was to win her over. He sighed. “It’s been a rough few months. And the plan was to come, but I was also healing. And I’ll be honest. This whole thing has sent me for a loop.” At that, her face softened, and he hated that almost more. The last thing he wanted was pity. No place for that in his world. He just felt this need to share with her, to communicate transparently. For Sari. Right?
But he held back going into more details about his unplanned-for exit from navy life. For most people, when they heard about his injuries and his long recovery, sympathy was the first thing that came to mind. That his injuries had been horrific enough a new-to-him but seasoned doctor winced when he brought him up to speed on his last visit didn’t help. Multiple compound fractures, soft tissue damage all resulting in several metal plates in his body and now missing a rib. But he’d survived. Still he wasn’t completely against Daniela knowing if it softened her attitude toward him because, of course, he should have hopped a plane the minute he had heard about his daughter. But he hadn’t. Yet kicking himself more than he already had wouldn’t help.
“Well, you’re here now,” she said, and her smile was a little easier than before.
He studied her for a long moment and then nodded. “That I am. And I apologize,” he said. “I had no idea of her existence.”
“She’s waiting for us at home,” she said.
He stopped and looked at her in surprise. “Alone?”
“No, of course not alone,” she said, shaking her head. “My sister is there.” She motioned toward a double-cab half-ton truck sitting in the lot. “This is mine,” she said, already off at a brisk walk, expecting him to follow. She opened the driver’s door, then hopped in and waited for him to go around and get in.
He put his backpack on the back seat and hopped in. “I haven’t made any plans yet about where to stay.”
“I know,” she said. “I gather you’re one of those ‘wing it’ kind of guys.”
Again, feeling like it was a dig, he bit his tongue. “No,” he said mildly. “Like I said, my travel arrangements happened really fast, and I wasn’t sure where I would end up, nor what exactly I’d be doing up here.”
“Right,” she said.
“Will you tell me how you found out I was flying in today?”
“Your landlady,” she said briefly.
He stopped, thought about that, then nodded. “Of course Helen would do that.”
“Was it top secret?” Daniela asked.
“No, of course not,” he said with a half smile. “You just surprised me.”
“I used to work for dispatch,” she said quietly. “So it was within the realm of possibility that I could track you down.”
“Is that how you tracked me originally?” He wondered how he hadn’t known she worked for dispatch.
“No,” she said. “That was done through the child’s mother.”
Interesting how everybody avoided using Angel’s name. What a dichotomy that moniker was. “I didn’t realize you were in contact with Angel,” he said.
“I was briefly,” she said, “but only at the time of the adoption. I filed the information away and didn’t look at it until after Charlie died. Honestly she’s not someone I wanted to stay in contact with. It was hard to find her even then to finalize the paperwork. I had to go through multiple people until everything was taken care of.”
“You mean, multiple bars?”
She shot him a hard look. “If it was good enough for you to find her there, it was good enough for me to find her there too.”
He felt ashamed. “Look. Can we start again?” he said. “I’m Weston Thurlow, and I just arrived in Anchorage. I’m looking forward to meeting Sari and you.”
“Sari is looking forward to meeting you too,” Daniela said instantly. “And I’m Daniela Rogers. Pleased to meet you finally.”
He nodded. “Can we agree it was a bad deal from the beginning?”
“Did you really not know?” she asked curiously.
“I had no idea,” he said shortly. “I wasn’t very happy when I found out.” When she sucked in her breath, he turned toward her. “But not for the reason you think.” When Daniela didn’t say anything, he forged on. “Look. If I’d known she was pregnant, I would have been there. I don’t know if we’d have been together, but I’d have been there. Or, even later, when she decided to bail, I’d have taken responsibility for that baby in a minute, if I’d known.”
At that Daniela made a startled exclamation and glanced at him. “Seriously?”
He shot her a hard look. “Absolutely. That’s my flesh and blood, and she was given away without me even knowing she existed. How do you think I felt?”
She gave him a second shocked look and then returned to driving, but her face twisted with an expression he didn’t know her well enough to understand. “When did you find out?”
“After the adoption was already done,” he said quietly. “Angel called me up when she was drunk one night and told me what she’d done. She kept all the details to herself, just letting me know enough to twist the knife.”
Again Daniela’s breath caught in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s a hard way to find out you have a child.”
“Had a child. And it was a devastatingly hard way to find out. I’ve wanted to wring Angel’s neck for what she did but couldn’t trust myself to be up here.”
“You apparently feel strongly about it.”
“If you had lost a child, wouldn’t you?” He knew his words were wrong when her face blanched. A split-second later he realized that a woman who adopted somebody else’s child likely had done so because she couldn’t have any of her own.
She gave a clipped nod, and, even though her face was pale, she answered in a controlled tone. “I would have been devastated,” she said softly. “I, um, I can’t have any children, which is why I adopted Sari.”
“Of course,” he said. “I really appreciate that you gave her a home.”
Daniela looked over at the stranger in her truck. She’d used a lot of persuasion to let his landlady know what their connection was and why she needed to meet him at the airport. So far, he’d rebuffed all her efforts to come meet Sari, but it was for Sari’s sake that she was doing this.
At least she thought so. Maybe it was for her own. She didn’t want to examine that too closely. But since her husband’s death, Sari hadn’t been the same child. It had been hard on the little girl. There was also guilt involved because Daniela had experienced a certain amount of relief knowing Charlie was gone. And how horrible was that?
She stole another sideways glance at the stranger beside her. She shouldn’t call him a stranger, since he was the father of her child, and didn’t that sound more intimate than it was? She shook her head ever-so-slightly, hoping he wouldn’t notice. As she tried to toss off the thoughts confusing her, she glanced at him again. “Are you okay to stay at my place for a night or two, while you get your feet on the ground?”
He shrugged. “It was great that you picked me up. You certainly don’t have to give me a place to stay.”
“But I have to,” she said, “otherwise you might not come over.”
He winced at that.
She didn’t want to be mean, but, at the same time, she needed to know if there was any connection between her daughter and her daughter’s father. It sounded strange to put it that way, but she didn’t know how else to say it.
It was another ten minutes before she pulled up to the small, modest two-story house. The main attraction had been a huge backyard, perfect for children to play in. Sari loved having the space. It still broke Daniela’s heart that she couldn’t give Sari any siblings herself, but she was so grateful to have Sari in her life now that she refused to be upset.
As she parked the truck, she turned to look at him. “My sister’s name is Davida,” she said, “and she’ll probably leave right away.”
He looked at her oddly.
She shrugged. “You need to know that a lot of people here don’t have a very good attitude toward you.”
He stared at her in surprise.
She nodded and then gave a bit of explanation. “You’ve got to remember that Angel was here before you. She doesn’t have anything nice to say about you.”
“Interesting, on Angel’s part,” he bit off. “I met her one night, and, yes, we had a one-night stand, but two tangoed that night. She never told me about Sari until after the adoption was final.” He glared at her. “So, if anybody should be having nothing nice to say, it should be me about Angel.”
Daniela didn’t answer that but opened the truck door, hopped out and waited for him to join her. He did, his bag in hand, as she walked to the front door.
Sure enough, even before Daniela could open it, Davida had the front door open. She looked at Daniela, then her gaze swung to the six foot, two inch silent male at her sister’s side. She took a step back, defensive instincts coming up as she glared at the stranger. “Is this him?” she asked Daniela, her tone hostile.
Daniela sighed. “Yes. This is Weston. But you might want to know a little tidbit here. He didn’t know about Sari’s existence until after the adoption was final.”
Davida turned to look back at the stranger, shock in her gaze. Then, as if not wanting to let go of her anger and resentment, she said, “According to him, you mean?”
“Yes. According to me,” he said, standing on the front step. “It’d be interesting to have Angel here, so she could tell a different story with me standing in front of her.”
Davida frowned, then glanced back at Daniela. “I haven’t seen Angel since you adopted Sari.”
“No, thank goodness, neither have I,” Daniela said.
Stepping back a little farther, Davida ignored that. “Sari’s sleeping.”
“Perfect,” Daniela said. “I’m glad I’m here for when she wakes up.”
With that, Davida grabbed her jacket and purse. “I’ll talk to you later.” With a hard look at Weston, Davida disappeared out the front door.